circumcision and infants/children

[PPK]

hi,

I'm 5 months preg with my first and its a boy. Before I ever read anything about circumcision, my husband and I never thought twice that it was what should be done. To me, being uncircumcised was very rare. I had several partners before my husband and all were circumcised (including him). My husb still feels strongly about getting it done, but not immediately after birth, because he's read all the info on the trauma/pain I've shown him.

Of course, I know now about the pain, trauma, and decreasing number of babies going through the ordeal. I've read about it ad nauseum the past two months.

So, circumcision right after birth is not an option at all. Period.

But, I still want to know what the options are like for the surgery later on down the line. I thought anywhere from 6mos.-3years old. if they could be safely anesthized and unconcious of the surgery and pain we would then still consider it.

Is anesthesia safe, do they even offer general anaethesia at these ages for the surgery, at any age for that matter? Are there higher risks of complications at that age?

I also read one study (on rats) that anesthesia during brain development impairs the connections leading to problems later on. It said the human's brain formation takes place until 3 years. Has anyone heard this before? Obviously many babies have to go through surgeries at young ages and I haven't heard of this before, which made me wonder about its validity.

If it has to be that he remains uncircumcised, that's ok as well, but I want to know what options there are. I've tried web searching, but haven't found much useful info.

Thank you,
Jen

[fek&fuzz]

Please visit The Case Against Circumcision Forum here. The link is in my sig.
You will find all you need to know there.

[rmzbm]

There is NO reason for circ.! There is a whole forum here dedicated to discussing this topic, please visit! It's called "The case against circumcision" - right under the vaccination board. Lots'a very knowledgable mamas there that can answer your concerns! Welcome to MDC!

[A&A]

to MDC!

THIS is why your dh wants your son circ'd:

http://www.stopcirc.com/vincent/vuln...ty_of_men.html

(Note: DON'T show this article to your dh. It's just for you to read and think about.)

Generally anesthesia is safe, but not 100% safe. I wouldn't risk it for an unnecessary surgery.

And perhaps this will help you make up your mind:

http://timmytm.livejournal.com/33872...thread=2081616

[mothragirl]

there is no age where it is a good idea to chop off part of your child's genitals for no reason.

[wednesday]

It's truly not necessary surgery for a newborn, or a 6-month-old, or a 3-year-old. It's your son's body, if you really think he may want it done one day you can wait and let him decide.

[PPK]

thanks for directing me to the right forum. I've read many articles (including men who feel victimized) similar to those posted. My husband's primary concern is since he is in the age group where (from what I've read) 90% of males were circumcised, he fears the child would suffer trauma later if he were to have a partner who was turned off by it.That's truly his main concern. My husband feels great about his physical appearance and the fact that he was circumcised, but in no way would subject the child to pain. If it were necessary for the child to be aware of the pain of the surgery, he would not opt for him to have it. That's why I wanted to know the options. Thanks for the references, I'll move to the other forum with this. Thanks for the help, Jen

[huggerwocky]

I've met a woman who's child died from general anesthesia. I would certainly not risk it for a cosmetic operation.

[Twinklefae]

A little OT but are there truly women out there who care one way or the other? As long as the man had a penis I was never too fussy about whether he was circ'd or not. My DF is not but I can't imagine preferring one or the other? I've been with men who were and who were not. The only difference I ever noticed was in their own enjoyment.

[MCatLvrMom2A&X]

There is always risk to GA. There is no way to tell who will do fine with it and who will not. There is always risk to circ especially when they are in there growing up years. There is no way your son will understand why you made his penis hurt and the memory will stay with him thru his life. Even under GA the inital circ may not hurt but he is going to be in pain for days if not weeks while he heals. I suppose you could give pain meds around the clock every 4 hours but do you really want to put that much medication into his body?

If you raise your son to be proud of the fact that he is whole and teach him why you felt there was no reason to circ he will be thankful that you saved the most important part of his penis for him. If after he turns 18 and wants it done then he can do so.

Very few men choose to be circed tho but it seems there are so many "I wish I was circed at birth" out there but answer me this if they were so unhappy being intact why dont they go do it now were they can have proper pain managment?

I hope that you do indeed visit over at the CAC and ask questions and read all the information there. It isnt just some men who talk about being not happy with being circed it is mom's who regret from the bottom of their hearts they hurt their children. And us as woman who suffer because our dh was circed. Sometimes not until later in life.

By the way have you considered that he may not grow up to live in america he may choose to move to Europe and over there almost no man is circed. So then he would be the odd man out there.

No matter what children will be teased about something. What makes the difference is how we as parents help our children deal with it. Oh and the circ rate here in the USA right now is down around 50% so odds are very high your ds will not be the only intact male in his school and if for some reason a girl/woman rejects him for being intact that just saves him the trouble of wasting his time on a shallow imature person.

[mezzaluna]

if you are willing to wait long enough for your son to have GA for the procedure, why not wait until he's an adult and can decide for himself how he wants his body to look and perform. if he does truly find he's ostracized for being intact, then he can make the choice according to how it has affected him in his life... if you choose it for him now, you'll never know if it would have been a problem or not. we ended up deciding this way about religious circumcision... DH is jewish, i'm not, therefore DS is not (jewishness goes through the mother) - so we decided not to circumcize just for the off-chance that DS will wish to convert... if he decides to convert, he can make his own decision about circumcision, too.

[InDaPhunk]

There is no right way to do a wrong thing. Him being older won't make it better, either .

Many of us have DHs -and the fathers of our children- that are circumcised, yet our babies are not. Many men have had their minds changed by what they've learned...but when they haven't had them changed the mothers have said "not over my dead body" and their sons have remained intact.

Read the thread at the top of the case against circumcision forum about mothers that have circumcised their children and regret it. It's so heartbreaking. Please don't do that to yourself or your precious, trusting, perfect baby.

Good luck in your journey.

[mum2James&Bean]

ITA with the pp's... if you're willing to wait until the child is 6 months-3 years old, why not wait until he's old enough to decide for himself? At that point, it would take about the same amount of time to heal (or longer for a 3 year old who doesn't know better than to constantly pick at it!), and probably be about the same amount of pain I'd think...

I think your dh's concerns are pretty much unfounded. The US has one of the highest circumcision rates in the world, and even so, in many areas it's dropping very quickly. If your son decided, for example, that he wanted to move to Canada (circumcision rate less than 20%) or Europe (with a circ. rate much lower even still) he'd truly be the odd one out. Even in the U.S. circ. rates are nowhere near 90% in the vast majority of areas. The highest is the Midwest is hovering around 80% and just over 30% in the West at the lowest. So either way, your son will be in good company regardless of whether he's circumcised or not.

Good luck with your decisions!

[jessjgh1]

There is no way to have a painfree circumcision. Even adults with full anesthesia still expereince pain after it is over. Although they can take strong pain medicine to help (an infant cannot).

The circ stats in the US are closer to 50/50 so why does it matter that the rates were 90% for dh? When dh was born doctors commonly told mothers that breastmilk was inferior and pushed formula. Medical practics have changed-- formula and circumcision are 2 issues that are going thru transition (thank goodness). Besides, even if you are from a higher circ area, you never know where your sons partner might be from.

Scratch all that anyways, I'm sure that the pain issue is important to you and dh, but most important is having a reason to do something in the first place. Boys are born with a foreskin- and THAT is normal and natural. There is no need to remove it, in fact there are many reasons to keep it.

Good luck,

Jessica

[hubris]

I second the recommendations to visit the case against circumcision forum. I also want to say HOORAY! for you for recognizing the trauma that this surgery causes to infants, which makes me want to address this:

Originally Posted by jenrose9

But, I still want to know what the options are like for the surgery later on down the line. I thought anywhere from 6mos.-3years old. if they could be safely anesthized and unconcious of the surgery and pain we would then still consider it.

I have two sons, 21 mos old and 4 years old. I cannot imagine having either circumcised at these ages. Neither is able to give consent (actually, both would vehemently withhold their consent), and neither is able to handle the fear and pain that would result. Pain medications diminish pain but do not eliminate it. They would certainly experience pain that would seem horrible to them. They would also experience a breach of trust (trust in me, trust in their physician) and the loss of a normal body part, which I know would be very traumatic to my older son and probably to my younger son as well.

When my sons reach adulthood, they may make this choice for themselves, if they wish to. I encourage you to give your sons that choice as well.



Regarding partners being turned off by a normal/intact penis: honestly, people can be jerks about SO MANY things. This is just one more thing. I wouldn't expect my sons to change anything else about who they are to suit a lover, and I wouldn't think very highly of a woman or man who rejected them on the basis of their having a functional foreskin. We've all kissed frogs, I'm sure my sons will at some point, and I'd much rather they recognize the frog for what she/he is and toss it back in the pond rather than end up attached to the frog by virtue of the fact they'd been surgically altered.

And FWIW, the women I've known who were accustomed to circumcised men but later met an intact men usually thought it was interesting/different at first and after that, it either didn't matter or they liked it better. I've never known an intact man to have a horrible reaction from a lover.

[SublimeBirthGirl]

Your husband's situation is very different from the one that exists now, with only half of boys being circ'd and the numbers on the decline. Circ'd boys will be in the minority soon, THANK GOD. I'd divorce my (much loved) husband before I'd allow cosmetic surgery on my son, much less allow genital mutilation to be done to him. Fortunately, my husband is anti-circ now (and we have two girls so it's all academic).

[pigpokey]

The option for surgery down the line -- the ethical option, and the one safest in terms of pain relief options -- is for your son to, if he chooses to be circumcized, do it as an adult. He will have a wide variety of options for anesthesia during the procedure (after all, if he chooses it he will cooperate so he could be awake) and can weigh the pros and cons for him of anesthesia risks and benefits. He can also dole out pain pills to himself as needed and for the love of god, his glans won't need to be ripped up because he'll be retractible and he won't be irritating his wound in diapers and can walk around for a week in a flippin bathrobe if he wants.

I really think if you look at your worst case scenarios:

(1) Someone makes fun of my body part. Someone I adore and marry might prefer that body part on me rather than amputated, and I might have a better marriage intact, but I can find love and be loved I can choose to alter myself or not. I can choose.

(2) I was circumcized (not my choice or medically necessary). I was traumatized by the pain and loss of part of a special part of me that I was not old enough to understand or process. My parents put me through this. They are supposed to protect me. Doctors are supposed to be places for me to go when I am sick or injured. I can restore, but it can not ever be the same. I do not have options.

I was under general a little under 2 weeks ago. It's not a picnic itself. There is no get out of trauma free card. I understood why I felt so sick from it. I understood why I chose to have all those drugs put into my body and brain. A child?

Very few intact men in the US choose adult circumcision. I think that speaks volumes.

[Individuation]

It's very, very normal to be uncirc'ed now. When your son is old enough to have partners, they likely will not think twice about it.

Please do reassure your husband that you like the way he looks. Sometimes men get bombarded with all the anti-circ info and feel like their wives are telling them that their penises are disfigured. I had this conversation with my DH, and told him "hey, I'm culturally conditioned to prefer yours, but the girls 20 years from now won't be, and it doesn't really matter if I find my son's penis sexually appealing." Hard to disagree with that.

I wouldn't do a later surgery--it's a surgery on the sex organs of a child? Potentially dangerous for no reason? No... that's abuse, IMO. Sorry to be so blunt.

Let him decide for himself when he's older.

[wytchywoman]

Originally Posted by jenrose9

thanks for directing me to the right forum. I've read many articles (including men who feel victimized) similar to those posted. My husband's primary concern is since he is in the age group where (from what I've read) 90% of males were circumcised, he fears the child would suffer trauma later if he were to have a partner who was turned off by it.That's truly his main concern. My husband feels great about his physical appearance and the fact that he was circumcised, but in no way would subject the child to pain. If it were necessary for the child to be aware of the pain of the surgery, he would not opt for him to have it. That's why I wanted to know the options. Thanks for the references, I'll move to the other forum with this. Thanks for the help, Jen

And you husband, unfortuantely may be right in that there is an occasional boneheaded woman out there that may be uncomfortable with an uncirc'd male. That has everything to do with her ignorance and nothing to do with the attractiveness of your son's penis. You guys can easily sit your son down as a teen when beforehe is sexually active and forewarn him that not every woman will have seen an uncirc'd penis and what the potential fallout may be and how it can be handled. Please give your son the chance to make this choice for himself. If as a teen or an adult, he decicdes he wants to be circ'd, than all power to him ,he can get circ'd. But he should be the one consenting to this procedure.
Think of it this way. Say you have a family of females who are all flat chested and were all teased and belittled by school mates and later on by parnters because their breats weren't big enough. If a future baby girl is born into that family, would it be right to take that baby, at birth, or 6 mo- 3 years, and have breast implants inserted so she won't be ridiculed? It is the same thing. Both are cosmetic procedures, both are completely unnecessary. Just like there is only one medical necessity for breat implants ( restoration after mastectomy) there are only a few medical necessities for a circ which are gangrene, cancer or frostbite. Other than that the foreskin does not need to be removed. I really really hope you show your DH some of these posts so that he can see. He is willing to take the risk of putting his son under general anesthesia, two steps away from death's door, to perform an unneccesary procedure on your baby son. Please, please don't do this mama, you will regret and so will your son.

Namaste,

Michelle

[crysmomofthree]

Originally Posted by jenrose9

thanks for directing me to the right forum. I've read many articles (including men who feel victimized) similar to those posted. My husband's primary concern is since he is in the age group where (from what I've read) 90% of males were circumcised, he fears the child would suffer trauma later if he were to have a partner who was turned off by it.That's truly his main concern. My husband feels great about his physical appearance and the fact that he was circumcised, but in no way would subject the child to pain. If it were necessary for the child to be aware of the pain of the surgery, he would not opt for him to have it. That's why I wanted to know the options. Thanks for the references, I'll move to the other forum with this. Thanks for the help, Jen

while the child may not suffer any pain during the operation if it is performed under general anesthetic, there is a very painful recovery period especially if the child is still in diapers There will be an open wound on the penis that will hurt constantly until it is healed with the pain being intensified if it is bumped, touched, washed, having to go pee or have a bowel movement, getting dressed, diapers on and off.

There are definate risks to general anesthetic, often it is preferrable to wait until after the age of 2 to have a child undergoe general anesthetic for any non emergent surgery. I have had young children undergoe simple surgeries (eye muscle repair as well as others) between the ages of 18 months and 4 years and it is very scary for the child as well as the parent to be put under have the surgery and then come out of the anesthesia